PATRICK LAWRENCE: Biden’s Taiwan Talk
We are witnessing the gradual dismantling of strategic ambiguity in favor of the clarity urged by Trump’s belligerent secretary of state, Mike Pompeo. Watching President Joe Biden’s stunningly clumsy performance in Tokyo last week, during which he committed the U.S. to…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Trump’s Foreign Policy Explained
Trump arrived in Washington as a New York property man unfamiliar with the permanent DC establishment, but determined to make deals where others dare not go. Chaos was the result. “Some friendly health advice to Iran,” President Donald Trump tweeted last Wednesday….
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Empire with a Human Face
The Biden people are unlikely to speak of a new cold war with China, but they appear likely to wage one all dressed up as a sophisticated trans–Pacific strategy. Those boneheaded Trump people explained their hostile, xenophobic, fated-to-fail policy toward…
THE REVELATIONS OF WIKILEAKS: No. 9—Opening the CIA’s Vault
As its publisher remains in prison awaiting judgment on his extradition case, we continue our series of looking at WikiLeaks’ significant revelations contributing to the public’s right to know. On Feb. 6, 2017, WikiLeaks released documents detailing the Central Intelligence Agency’s espionage program in…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Damage Russiagate Has Done
Authoritarian liberals have unleashed a censorious syndrome peculiar to our national character, dating to 17th century Quaker hangings in Boston. An inhabitant of Twitterland named “Willow Inski” took to the keyboard on Oct. 11, asking why anyone still accepts official…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Europe Going Its Own Way
Events of the past week show the Continent restoring some of its pre-1945 independence from U.S. hegemony. Those who come after us will look back and conclude we lived in a time of great moment. This is true in all sorts of…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Mike Pompeo’s Cold-War Fever
As this dreadful year draws near its close, the top U.S. diplomat has put us at far more risk of war than we were at its start. Will we start a war with Iran? Will we invade Venezuela? Will we…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: Voting in a De-Facto Military State
Between Biden and Trump, U.S. voters have no alternative to our anxious empire’s lawless conduct abroad. What are we in for on the foreign policy side come Nov. 3? Whoever wins this election, Joe Biden or Donald Trump, the answers…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: A United State of Delusion
Americans are caught in a kind of national psychosis, wherein little of what is said about foreign conduct — from Germany to the South China Sea — can be taken at face value. Let’s face it: The Trump regime has from the…
PATRICK LAWRENCE: The Press Reckoning on Russiagate
Jeff Gerth’s investigation for The Columbia Journalism Review exposes the dark heart of the news media’s coverage of alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. In the autumn of 1973, Jack Anderson, the wonderful iconoclast of the Washington press corps, published…